Mercedes Lackey - The Gates of Sleep

Pure evil The words hit him between the eyes and he gaped at the stranger. “Pure evil? Pure evil?” he repeated, as all of the pieces fell together.

Ellen—Madam and her son—the curse—the pottery in Exeter—curses, and black magic, in the traditional and legended sense of the words.

And the stories, the accounts in those old traditions of the Scottish Masters—the tales of Satanists.

And yesterday, Marina had gone to the pottery in Exeter, looking for whatever had attached itself, lampreylike, to Ellen with the purpose of draining her. What if she’d discovered black magic there, the Left-Hand Path, which needed no inborn abilities to walk? What if Madam realized that Marina was about to unmask that evil?

And if Madam and her son were Satanists, if they had set up the pottery as a place where they could batten on the energies of the marginally gifted as they were poisoned, physically and spiritually—that could be the source of the power behind the curse. That would be why no one had seen any signs of Power on or around them. They didn’t have any power until they stole it, and once stolen, they had to discharge it immediately, store it elsewhere, or lose it.

And that would be why Andrew could not unravel the dreadful net that ensnared Marina. It was like no magic he or any Master he knew had ever seen before. Certainly nothing that any Master still alive had seen before. Ah— still alive —

As it happened sometimes when he was exhausted, the answer came in a flash of clarity. Still alive; that was the key to this lock, the sword to sever this Gordian Knot. Because there were Masters of the past who had certainly seen, yes, and even worked to combat such evil.

And to a Master of Earth, the past was an open book.

“My God,” he breathed—a prayer, if ever there was one. “Tarrant, I think I have an idea—”

“Well, I’ve got one, at least,” Sebastian interrupted him. “Thomas and Margherita are Earth Masters themselves—not strong ones by any means, but one thing they can do is, keep Marina going. We’re fresh; you’re not. Do you want to get to work on this idea of yours now, or get a spot of rest first?”

He wanted to work on it now, but what he was going to try would need every bit of concentration he had. “I need to go look through my magic books,” he decided aloud. “There’s one in particular I need to find, what used to be called a grammar in Scotland and Northumberland and—” he shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll find it, make sure it’s the one I need, then I’ll drug myself. I’ll need my wits, and you’re right, if I don’t get a couple of hours of rest, I won’t have them about me.”

“Good man.” Tarrant nodded approval. “We’ll make sure Marina’s all right, you can leave that to us. What about the rest of your patients?”

“Eleanor can see to them—did you say your wife is an Earth Master? Would she be willing to help?” he asked, desperate for anything that might take the burden off his shoulders during this crisis.

“When Lady Elizabeth gets here, I’ll tell my wife to have your nurse Eleanor show her what to do, and I’ll send someone down to the village to telegraph for some more help,” Tarrant promised. “There’s not a lot of us out here in the country, nor powerful, but we’re Devonians, even those of us who weren’t born here. When need calls, we answer.”

“But—the telegraph—?” he replied, puzzled.

Tarrant fixed him with a minatory glance. “Why use power we should save for helping her to do what a telegraph can do, and just as quickly?”

Andrew winced; it was one of his own Master’s constant admonitions. Why use magic to do what anyone can do? Save it for those things that hands cannot accomplish, ye gurtfool.

He closed his eyes as a moment of dizzy exhaustion overcame him, then opened them. “Me for my old books, then—” he shoved away from the table.

“If you’ve got any clues, Doctor, you’re miles ahead of the rest of us,” Tarrant said, his jaw set. “And if you’ve the will and the strength and the knowledge—then you let the rest of us take your burdens off you so you can do what needs to be done. We’ll be the squires to your knight if that suits you.”

He nodded, and headed for his own room at a run, his steps echoing on the staircase as he made for the second floor. An apt comparison, that. Perhaps more so than Sebastian Tarrant dreamed.

Chapter Twenty-One

AS Andrew sat on the edge of his bed and depressed the plunger on a syringe containing a very carefully minimized dose of morphine, he reflected that somewhere in Scotland, his old Master was rotating in his grave like a water-powered lathe. The old man wouldn’t even take a drop of whisky for a cold; he was a strict Covenanter, and how he could reconcile that with talking to fauns and consorting with brownies was something Andrew had never quite managed to get him to explain.

Well, the old boy had a phobia about needles as well; he couldn’t stomach the sight of anyone being injected, much less someone injecting him, and still less the thought of what Andrew was doing, injecting himself. Andrew pulled the needle out of his arm, and the tourniquet off, and felt the rush of immediate dizziness as the drug hit his brain. He didn’t like doing this—he was nearly as against it as his old Master!—but it was the only way he was going to get any sleep.

Which I really should do now —he thought dimly, lying down.

Five hours later—long enough for the morphia to have worn off—Eleanor shook him awake. He had the luck to be one of those who came awake all at once, rather than muzzily clambering up out of sleep. “There’s no change, Doctor,” she said sadly as he sat up, pushing the blanket aside that someone had laid over him. He hadn’t expected there to be any change—but if only—

“But Miss Roeswood’s guardians have been wonderful,” Eleanor continued. “Mrs. Tarrant is so good with the children, and Mr. Buford has charmed the lady guests—and gammoned them into thinking he’s a specialist-doctor you brought in especially to see that they were all right.” She brightened a little at that, for the “lady guests” were especially trying to her. And, truth to tell, to Andrew to a certain extent. There was always the worry of keeping what the real patients were up to away from them, and the fuss they tended to cause as they recovered from their exhaustion, becoming bored but not quite ready to leave. “Oh, and Lady Elizabeth Hastings is here as well. She kept the telegraph office busy for a solid hour, I think.”

He nodded; that was a plus. Say what you would about the old aristocracy, but they were used to organizing things and pushing them through, used to taking charge and giving orders. That was one area, at least, that he would not have to worry about. Lady Hastings had obviously got the more mundane aspects of the situation well in hand.

And right now, he wanted to concentrate solely on the grammary he’d extracted from the old trunk he’d brought with him from Scotland. He’d even put it under his pillow for safekeeping before letting the drugs have their way with him. Now he drew it out, a dark, leather-bound volume of rough-cut parchment; it dated back to before the first James—probably to the time of the Scots queen, Mary. There were no actual dates in it, but Mary had brought courtiers with her from France and had been raised and educated there—and at that time, there was something of a fad for Satanism in the French Court. Some of the Masters of the time blamed it on the Medici influence, but Andrew was inclined to think it went back further than that. There had been enough suspicious deaths and illnesses in the French Court for centuries to make him think that there had been a dark influence there from almost the time of Charlemagne.